All posts tagged: avs

Uber to put 500 data-collection vehicles on the road this year

Uber to put 500 data-collection vehicles on the road this year

Published by skeptic

Uber revealed on Wednesday a prototype car that it plans to use to scoop up real-world driving data for its growing roster of autonomous vehicle partners, including Avride, Waymo, and WeRide. The vehicle is not some radical design. Rather, it’s a Hyundai Ioniq 5 fitted with an incredible number of sensors on the top and sides, as the company first told TechCrunch back in January. The sensor-laden vehicle may not look particularly groundbreaking, but it does mark a few milestones for the company. This is the first vehicle Uber has assembled itself (with help from a partner) since the company sold its autonomous vehicle division to Aurora in 2020. It also represents progress on Uber’s new AV Labs division, which launched earlier this year to use sensor-equipped Uber cars to collect and then share data with its 30-and-counting autonomous vehicle technology partners. Uber said Wednesday that it plans to roll out 500 of these kitted-out Hyundai EVs globally this year. That fleet will be able to collect “2 million miles per month of high-fidelity data” …

Waymo expands pause to four cities as robotaxis keep driving into floods

Waymo expands pause to four cities as robotaxis keep driving into floods

Published by skeptic

Waymo has now paused service in four cities because its robotaxis are struggling to deal with heavy rain and flooded roads, a problem that already prompted the company to issue a recall last week. One of Waymo’s robotaxis was spotted driving through a flooded street in Atlanta, Georgia, on Wednesday before it ultimately got stuck for about an hour, according to local news reports. The vehicle was recovered and removed from the scene, Waymo told TechCrunch. Waymo says it paused service in the city, just like it has in San Antonio, Texas, while it figures out a solution. “Safety is Waymo’s top priority, both for our riders and everyone we share the road with. During a period of intense rain yesterday in Atlanta, an unoccupied Waymo vehicle encountered a flooded road and stopped,” the company said in a statement. Waymo also halted service in Dallas and Houston because of severe weather across Texas this week, the company confirmed to TechCrunch late Thursday. The expansion was first reported by Bloomberg News. A Waymo spokesperson said the …

Waymo halts freeway rides after robotaxis struggle in construction zones

Waymo halts freeway rides after robotaxis struggle in construction zones

Published by skeptic

Waymo has suspended robotaxi service on freeways in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Miami as it works to improve performance in construction zones, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Thursday. Waymo said it’s in the process of integrating “recent technical learnings into our software and expect to resume these routes soon.” Waymo robotaxis are still operating on surface streets in those cities. The decision to pull robotaxis off of freeways follows Waymo’s decision to pause operations in Atlanta and San Antonio, Texas to address problems with flooding in those cities. The company announced a software recall last week that was supposed to help its fleet avoid flooded areas in San Antonio, in which service has been halted for weeks, while it worked on a more permanent fix. At least one robotaxi was spotted getting stuck in Atlanta this week, causing Waymo to suspend operations there, too. These service interruptions come as Waymo is pushing to expand to a number of new cities around the globe this year, with the goal of offering as many …

Tesla reveals two Robotaxi crashes involving teleoperators

Tesla reveals two Robotaxi crashes involving teleoperators

Published by skeptic

Tesla Robotaxis have crashed at least twice since July 2025 while a teleoperator was remotely driving the vehicles, according to newly unredacted information submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Both crashes happened in Austin, Texas and occurred at low speeds. In each case, there was a safety monitor behind the wheel and no passengers were onboard. The new information comes just a few months after Tesla told lawmakers that it allows remote operators to pilot one of the company’s vehicles as long as they stay under 10 miles per hour. “This capability enables Tesla to promptly move a vehicle that may be in a compromising position, thereby mitigating the need to wait for a first responder or Tesla field representative to manually recover the vehicle,” the company said at the time. Tesla, like other companies working on autonomous vehicle technology, is required to submit detailed information about any crashes to NHTSA. Unlike most of those other companies, though, Tesla had always redacted the descriptions of its crashes, claiming they were confidential business …

Uber partner Avride is under investigation for self-driving crashes

Uber partner Avride is under investigation for self-driving crashes

Published by skeptic

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened an investigation into Avride, a robotaxi company that has partnered with Uber, after identifying more than a dozen crashes and one minor injury. The safety regulator’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) said all 16 crashes that it has identified have to do with “the competence of” Avride’s self-driving system, which has apparently struggled with changing lanes, responding to other vehicles in the same lane, and responding to stationary objects. All of the crashes have come while the Avride vehicles were under the supervision of a safety monitor in the driver’s seat. Reached for comment, Avride declined to explain why the safety monitors did not intervene in these crashes. The company pointed out that it reported these crashes to the NHTSA as required by the agency’s 2021 Standing General Order on automated driving. “We have implemented targeted technical and operational mitigations to address our findings from each reported incident between December 2025 and March 2026, and have further enhanced overall system capabilities,” the company said in a …

Avs Defenseman Brent Burns Becomes 2nd in NHL History to Skate in 1,000 Consecutive Games

Avs Defenseman Brent Burns Becomes 2nd in NHL History to Skate in 1,000 Consecutive Games

Published by Sam Flores

DALLAS (AP) — Avalanche defenseman Brent Burns became the second player in NHL history to appear in 1,000 consecutive games when Colorado faced against Central Division rival Dallas on Saturday. The bearded 41-year-old was recognized on the video board by the Stars early in the game, and plenty of Dallas fans joined a vocal Avs contingent in cheering for Burns. The all-time ironman streak belongs to forward Phil Kessel, who played in 1,064 consecutive regular-season games from Nov. 3, 2009, to April 13, 2023. He appeared with Toronto, Pittsburgh, Arizona and Vegas. Burns, who appeared in his 1,500th game in October against the Stars, has been in the lineup for every game since Nov. 21, 2013, with San Jose. He also has played for Minnesota and Carolina. Burns is in his first season with the Avalanche and has 11 goals. He and Hall of Famer Nicklas Lidstrom are the only defensemen in league history to score double-digit goals at 40 or older. The meeting with the Stars is Burns’ 1,572nd career regular-season game. He entered …

Robotaxi companies refuse to say how often their AVs need remote help

Robotaxi companies refuse to say how often their AVs need remote help

Published by skeptic

In February, Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) sent letters to seven U.S. companies working on autonomous vehicle technology with a list of questions. He especially wanted to know how often these companies’ vehicles — operated by Aurora, May Mobility, Motional, Nuro, Tesla, Waymo, and Zoox — rely on input from remote staff. They all refused to say, according to the results of Markey’s investigation, which were released Tuesday. The information published by Markey’s office is the latest example of how hesitant autonomous vehicle companies are to share details about how their operations truly work — despite the fact that they are all experimenting with this technology on public roads. “This report has revealed a stunning lack of transparency from the AV companies around their use of [remote assistance operators] to help guide their AVs. The investigation exposed a patchwork of safety practices across the industry, with significant variation in operator qualifications, response times, and overseas staffing, all without any federal standards governing these operations,” Markey’s office wrote in its report. Markey said Tuesday that he is …

Waymo’s skyrocketing ridership in one chart

Waymo’s skyrocketing ridership in one chart

Published by skeptic

Waymo is now providing 500,000 paid robotaxi rides every week across 10 U.S. cities, the company shared in a post on X this week. The eye-popping figure is reflective of the Alphabet-owned company’s accelerated commercial expansion. But it’s Waymo’s rate of growth in ridership and markets that offers a more compelling story.  In less than two years, the company’s average weekly paid robotaxi trips have grown tenfold, from 50,000 per week in May 2024 to 500,000 per week today. Over that same two-year timespan, Waymo has expanded within its initial markets of Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles — and beyond them to Austin, Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando. Those seven cities in the Sun Belt were all added in just the past year. Waymo’s robotaxi fleet has also grown, although the company has guarded those numbers and rarely provides updates. Data provided in December 2025 to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) shows the company had 3,067 robotaxis equipped with its 5th generation self-driving system. The company still uses that …

Travis Kalanick reportedly starting a new self-driving company backed by Uber

Travis Kalanick reportedly starting a new self-driving company backed by Uber

Published by skeptic

Travis Kalanick is reportedly starting up a new self-driving vehicle company with “major backing” from Uber, according to The Information. He has reportedly told people he “wants to be more aggressive in rolling out self-driving technology than Waymo,” per the report. The Uber founder is also considering acquiring Pronto, the autonomous vehicle startup focused on industrial and mining sites that was created by his former colleague at the ride-hailing company, Anthony Levandowski. Last year, Kalanick was said to be interested in buying the U.S. arm of Chinese self-driving vehicle company Pony AI with backing from Uber, though The Information said Friday that those talks ended. Uber didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Kalanick resigned from Uber in 2017 after a confluence of crises at the ride-hail company. At the time, the company was plagued by complaints of sexual harassment and discrimination, which sparked an external investigation that resulted in more than 20 employees being fired. Before that, Kalanick had created a self-driving division at Uber in 2015. Levandowski played a big role in …

Zoox starts mapping Dallas and Phoenix for its robotaxis

Zoox starts mapping Dallas and Phoenix for its robotaxis

Published by skeptic

Zoox is now mapping the streets of Dallas, Texas, and Phoenix, Arizona, as a precursor to testing its autonomous vehicles in the two Sun Belt cities. The company said on Monday that it had sent a small number of its Toyota Highlander SUVs to each city, where workers will drive them to help Zoox’s autonomous software get the lay of the land. Zoox will afterwards start testing its self-driving system using the SUVs in both cities, before switching to its purpose-built robotaxis. Zoox said the two new markets will help it collect data in areas that are different from the dense metros its vehicles currently operate in. Once the company goes live in Dallas and Phoenix, Zoox will operate in 10 cities in the United States, alongside Atlanta, Austin, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. The company is currently offering free rides in Las Vegas and San Francisco through its early-rider program. Zoox said it has driven more than a million autonomous miles in Las Vegas and …